Igor Levit’s Piano for Populists

By David Allen

Dec. 2, 2015

Igor Levit isn’t wasting any time in the studio. His remarkable third release for Sony returns to the composers of his first two, Beethoven and Bach — and, to build a three-disc triptych of variations, adds another, Frederic Rzewski.

It’s a bold move, placing Mr. Rzewski’s 36 variations on “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” (1975) as an equal partner to Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations (1741) and Beethoven’s “Diabellis” (1823). Yet this urbane, consuming playing makes the argument persuasive. The Bach and Beethoven are very fine: clean and mature. The Rzewski is inspired.

A glance at Mr. Levit’s Twitter account shows him to be a politically alert musician. That engagement seeps into his account of a work based on the Chilean revolutionary song. When he announces the theme, it feels like a vanguard that will not be swayed, solid yet seductive. In Variation 13, where Mr. Rzewski’s Modernism gives way to jazz-standard ease, the swing is insatiable. And there’s a joyful rhythmic snap in Variation 27, a shortcut through Minimalism.

Nowhere are Mr. Levit’s gifts clearer than toward the end, where the composer allows an optional improvisation between Variation 36 and the theme’s reprise. Most pianists on record unmoor here, drifting away from the matter at hand. But Mr. Levit pushes Mr. Rzewski’s own language still further. He returns to the yelps and whistles of earlier variations, slamming the piano, using his every means to will the theme into triumphant return. The piano and the man playing it become comrades at arms.